Business Directories

IMF trims sub-Saharan Africa growth outlook

Accra, May 14, 2013

The IMF on Tuesday trimmed its growth outlook for sub-Saharan Africa to 5.4 percent in 2013 and 5.7 percent in 2014 but said economic activity was being supported by rising investment and booming extractive industries.

The International Monetary Fund had forecast sub-Saharan Africa's growth at 5.6 percent for this year and 6.1 percent for 2014 in its World Economic Outlook in April.

"Sub-Saharan Africa will be among the fastest growing places in the world ... second only to developing Asia," Antoinette Sayeh, director of the IMF's Africa department, told journalists in Ghana's capital Accra.

The report stated that GDP growth in countries categorized as middle income would be slower than in poorer nations, with the region's largest economy South Africa recovering only gradually from a weak 2012.

Inflation on the continent, which fell to 7.9 percent in 2012 from 10 percent the previous year, will continue its downward trend in 2013 and 2014, said Sayah, speaking at the launch of the Fund's economic outlook for sub-Saharan Africa.

The slowdown in inflation reflects factors including a tightening of monetary policy as well as improved weather in East Africa and West Africa's arid Sahel region, which lowered food production costs, the report said. – Reuters